Cape Town – Public relations agency Irvine Bartlett has rebranded as Irvine Partners, and expanded to offer integrated marketing services, it announced on Thursday.
“The changes, which take effect from today, reflect growing client demand for the agency’s services and its guiding ethos of partnership,” said Irvine Partners chief executive officer Rachel Irvine.
“Building profitable, fast-growing and sustainable partnerships with clients, staff, suppliers, journalists, media houses and others in our value chain, has seen Irvine Partners grow to become a high-impact agency in six short years. Our new name speaks to what we see as a critical success factor in our business today and into the future.”
She added that the agency has expanded its core service lines to include a digital division that provides campaign strategy, execution and evaluation – providing seamless end-to-end campaign service for clients. The agency has also established a dedicated content production unit and an in-house edit studio which creates multimedia content.
Irvine Partners has also announced a partnership with Collective Media, a black-owned media technology co-operative. The partnership sees the co-op, a start-up that is one of Irvine Partners’ suppliers of content, named as the first beneficiary of the newly-established Irvine Partners Education Trust.
Irvine said the partnership with Collective Media is a demonstration of the agency’s commitment to growing high-potential small, medium and micro enterprises within its value chain into profitable, sustainable businesses.
“The upheavals in the media ecosystem over the past two decades call for business models that suit new, dynamic realities. The relationship we have with Irvine Partners and within our co-operative of independent content producers allows us all to be more agile, adaptable and socially impactful in a fast-changing environment,” said Osiame Molefe, managing director of Collective Media.
Collective Media will be using the distributions from the Irvine Partners Education Trust to grow the skills, earnings and equity stake of young, black content producers, with a particular focus on young black women.